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Will Obamacare Leave Your Spouse Behind?

By Meghan Foley | More Articles

May 23, 2013


The Affordable Care Act will begin rolling out in October, and it will bring sweeping changes to how Americans get healthcare coverage. In particular, superstore-like state health exchanges — that are meant to make shopping for health insurance easier and more affordable — will open for enrollment this fall.

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That Obamacare is controversial is undeniable. Republicans have attempted 37 times to repeal the bill or de-fund it, arguing that it will expand the powers of the federal government too far, or hurt small businesses, or put a heavy burden on the country’s finances. And where political objections end, economic objections begin. Industry experts have argued that the reform will not improve the healthcare system in America.

This sentiment is best expressed by Democratic Senator Max Baucus — a key architect of the healthcare reform law — who told Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at an April hearing that he is concerned that the implementation of the Obama administration’s signature healthcare law will be a train wreck

One group that will surely see its coverage change, and probably not for the best: spouses.

Despite the fact that Obamacare mandates that businesses with 50 or more employees provide health insurance for their workers and their dependents or pay a penalty, it will not require employers to cover spouses. The law only defines children as dependents. Before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was enacted into law, approximately 150 million Americans received health insurance through their jobs and this insurance provided coverage to many husbands and wives as well. Many healthcare law authorities say that the change will not result in any big changes in the way that employers provide insurance for husbands and wives. But that may not necessarily be the case.

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The legislation’s provisions represent a significant divergence from current standards. “Right now there are virtually no employers that just offer coverage for the employee and their children,” healthcare law expert Tim Jost told Mother Jones. “Whether that will change or not, who knows. We will probably see at least some employers who will offer individual and child coverage, but not coverage for spouses.” He regularly consults with the Obama administration on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

In the case of a higher earning family — say one that brings in more than $94,000 per year, an income greater than what 78 percent of households earn — health insurance costs could greatly increase. If a spouse is dropped from a husband’s or wife’s insurance, the household income would disqualify him or her from receiving a government subsidy to purchase insurance on the government-run insurance exchanges. The uncovered spouse would then have to purchase private insurance, which could costs hundreds of dollars per month.

If the dropped spouse is a middle income earner or poor, he or she will be able to shop on the exchange with a subsidy. But even then, coverage is not free, although the idea is that it will be at least affordable. When people buy coverage on the exchange, the subsidy will be based on household income, measured before the household pays for the employer-provided health insurance. The law stipulates that employer-provided health insurance must cover a set of core benefits and be affordable — which the law defines as premiums costing no more than 9.5 percent of an employee’s income. Added on top of those insurance costs, the family will be paying for the spouse’s subsidy on the exchange, which will based on that much higher pre-healthcare-costs income level.

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“It’s a potential problem,” Ethan Rome, executive director of Health Care for America Now, a group that backs Obamacare, told the publication. “There could be some folks that get lost in the shuffle. And that is not insignificant…If you’re one of few people adversely affected by something, it doesn’t matter that everyone else on the planet is getting the benefit.” It should be noted that 30 million people, who are currently without insurance, will get coverage under Obamacare.

Other industry experts believe that it is unlikely that too many employers will drop spouses. “Family coverage is valued employee benefit,” she told Mother Jones. “I don’t see that this provision is going to change what employers do.” Rome agreed with her stance, “If you are an employer and you provide good quality health care for your employees, including dependent coverage, it’s because you understand that a good benefits package is the best way to recruit and retain top-notch employees.”

Follow Meghan on Twitter @MFoley_WSCS

Tizen Linux demo on an ultrabook (video)






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Tizen is a Linux-based operating system that’s backed by Samsung and which is expected to ship on Samsung smartphones this year. But the OS isn’t just for mobile devices like phones and tablets.

The folks at Tizen Experts got a chance to check out an early demo of Tizen running on an ultrabook, and it looks like a pretty it offers a pretty decent desktop Linux-style user experience. But like the smartphone version of Tizen, there’s an emphasis on running web apps as well as native apps.

Tizen ultrabook

Tizen’s notebook/desktop environment is based on GNOME Shell 3, and it comes with the ability to run native Linux apps such as LibreOffice and the Chrome web browser.

But Tizen is developing a custom version of the home screen and app launcher called Tizen Shell, and supports installing and running web apps so that you can run them as if they were native apps downloaded and installed to your computer.

Tizen can also handle the Steam gaming platform for Linux as long as you have a computer with decent 3D graphics capabilities.

Much of what makes Tizen exciting is the operating’s system on mobile devices including phones and tablets — something that other GNU/Linux operating systems such as Ubuntu are just getting started on. But it’s interesting to see that it’ll also be available for traditional PCs.

The demo video shows the operating system running on an ultrabook with an Intel Core i7 Ivy Bridge processor, but the OS can run on devices with slower processors.

The code for the notebook/desktop version of Tizen shown off in the video will eventually be released as part of Tizen 3.0. As of mid-May 2013, the latest stable version of the operating system is Tizen 2.1.

Unity promises to support Tizen OS

Zen Terrelonge

by Zen Terrelonge
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Unity promises to support Tizen OS

Tools are currently in development.

Tizen is an open source OS made from a cocktail of Linux-based MeeGo, WebKit and HTML5 elements, and is supported by the likes of Intel, Samsung, Orange and Panasonic. The dream is to empower all devices with an OS that can run across mobiles, TVs, and in-car entertainment systems.

As development tools provider Unity continues its push to become truly multi-platform, the firm has pledged allegiance to Tizen and promises it's working on a tool kit for the operating system.

The solutions will allow developers to build and publish games to Tizen smartphones and tablets via the Tizen Store later in the year. A selection of Unity titles will be available in time for the debut of Tizen-powered devices.

David Helgason, CEO, Unity Technologies, said: "Unity and Tizen have a lot in common in that they both aim to make the creation and the deployment of games and other apps as easy as possible for developers. Tizen’s broad OEM support and big market potential will provide another excellent avenue for our amazing community of mobile developers to find success."

Royichi Sugimura, chairman of Tizen Association, said: "Games are one of the driving forces behind smartphone and tablet adoption. "Unity support for Tizen OS ensures a huge number of talented developers making some of the most entertaining games have an efficient and powerful channel to publish their titles to Tizen Store."

Earlier this week, Unity made its mobile publishing tools free, and the Tizen announcement demonstrates how valuable the company considers the mobile market.

Sentiment: Strong Buy

Tizen with GNOME 3 shell shown by Intel

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Tizen logo
Tizen, the mobile operating system that has yet to see a device launched with it, is already widening its reach to laptops. Tizen, a Linux Foundation project with Intel and Samsung collaborating on development, is due to appear on smartphones in the latter part of the year with Tizen 2.1, which uses a Linux base layer with a user interface built using Enlightenment libraries to run HTML5-based apps. At the Tizen Developers Conference held this week though, Intel showed an early version of what will become part of Tizen 3.0 later in the year. Tizen Experts recorded a video of the Intel Tizen variant running on an i7 Ultrabook.
The desktop "Tizen Shell" used by Intel's laptop variant is based on the GNOME 3 shell and desktop environment. The demonstration shows the platform running applications such as Shotwell, Rhythmbox and Steam, as well as being able to run Tizen Web Apps. Desktop widgets have been created for the Tizen Shell, though they are built in JavaScript as GNOME extensions, rather than Tizen web applications. At this stage of development, it therefore appears to be a more traditional GNOME 3 desktop with the ability to run Tizen Web Apps and the Tizen IDE. The code involved will be donated to the Tizen project and should be available later in the year.
The vision for compatibility between the Tizen variants appears to be centred on being able to run Tizen Web Apps on the phone and desktop. Tizen itself has recently been updated with the publication of Tizen 2.1. Tizen 2.1 is billed as a minor update; the web runtime has now has Content Security Policy 1.0 support and various specification updates, along with Web DynamicBox which allows content to be embedded in viewer applications. Both the Nat

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Samsung, carriers tout first Tizen mobes for late 2013
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HTML5 seen as key to open source smartphone success
By Neil McAllister in San Francisco • Get more from this author
Posted in Operating Systems, 24th May 2013 00:35 GMT
Watch Now : Virtual Machine Movement with Hyper-V
TDC2013 You could be forgiven for thinking there's not much going on with Tizen, the Linux Foundation's open source mobile OS. It's been two years since the project was launched and there still are no Tizen devices on the market. But that's about to change – and there has been a lot happening behind the scenes, as well.
"Tizen-based products will come out very soon," Samsung executive VP Jong-Deok Choi, who cochairs the Tizen Technical Steering Group, told the audience at the second annual Tizen Developer Conference in San Francisco on Thursday.
NTT DoCoMo global marketing director Roy Sugimura said the Japanese carrier plans to release its first Tizen-based smartphone in the second half of 2013. Similarly, Orange plans to launch Tizen devices "in the back-to-school period" – meaning the end of summer – according to the company's device technical director, Frederic Dufal.
What makes this possible is the arrival of Tizen 2.1, the most mature and stable version of the platform to date. The source code and SDK for the update were released on May 17, and its developers say this version is finally fully baked.
"It's ready to be built into products and it's ready for you to build your applications against," said Mark Skarpness, director of systems engineering at Intel, another prominent member of the Tizen Association.
In addition to a variety of bug fixes and API improvements, Tizen 2.1 includes an enhanced web framework with support for the Content Security Policy 1.0 and Navigation Timing specs from the W3C; improved IDEs for web and native app development; and support for a new kind of small apps that can be embedded inside other apps, called Web Dynamic Boxes.
Tizen's de

Sentiment: Strong Buy

They currently have a $29.00 price target on the stock.

I hope is rises with weekly options expiration. It is oversold now.

Especially due to their presumed lack of entry into mobile.

Sentiment: Strong Buy

The bid is pounded every time.

small amounts on the Bid.

Sentiment: Buy

Anyone see something different?

Sentiment: Buy

ARM Holdings (NASDAQ:ARMH): Shares of the semiconductor stock, a key Apple (AAPL) supplier, are sliding 6.3% in today’s weak London tape on the back of a Neutral-from-Outperform downgrade by BNP Paribas.

ARM Holdings PLC (ARMH, ARM.LN) added to Tuesday's loses, falling 3% to $45.82, a day after the U.K.-based chip maker's analyst and investor day. The conference pointed to slower growth prospects in key markets and a lack of scale in new markets to take up the growth slack, said Societe Generale.